The good things about action research (AR) are that you are in control of what ... Kylie knew she had to collect data before her improvement actions started and ...
Want to improve what you do? Try action research. T.W. Maxwell School of Education, University of New England, Armidale, 2350. Australia
The good things about action research (AR) are that you are in control of what you are learning (unlike many staff development activities), how you go about it and when. Your AR is directly connected with your work realities. The down side is that it does take commitment over a period of time. You have to want to improve. When she was on her final year internship Kylie Emerson used AR to make improvements to her multi-grade students’ writing performance. She first did a reconnaissance which has three parts to it: 1. A situational analysis which allowed her to set out the situation that she was dealing with including such things as students’ skills and available resources; 2. her own competence in assisting students to write creatively; and 3. what the literature had to say about how creative writing could be improved in students aged 6-7. This is where she learned about graphic organisers. After going through that process she developed her AR question: “If I instruct a mixed ability group of Year 1 students1 on how to use graphic organisers to plan for their writing experiences, to what extent will this improve their writing performance?” Notice that “improve” is the key word. Next she planned two features of her classroom work for the next few weeks: 1. She planned what actions actions she would take to make the improvements using graphic organisers; and 2. she planned (a) what data she would collect so that she would be able to see whether improvements had taken place and (b) when she would collect these data. Two things are important here. Ideally at least three kinds of data are needed. Kylie kept a journal, she collected work samples and the students did a simple survey (and two additional techniques). Kylie knew she had to collect data before her improvement actions started and at the end so she could see any contrasts (at least).
Having done that Kylie went ahead and put her plans into action. For her this was over an eight week period. While she was acting she was observing and so thinking about what was happening, that is, she was reflecting and she made some adjustments. The major reflection was at the end after she collected her final set of data. She concluded that there was a notable improvement in the students’ writing after the introduction of the graphic organiser as a planning tool. To read more about Kylie’s work see http://wblearning-ejournal.com/archive/10-10-11/.
Published in Linking research to the practice of Education 2, 2, 2, https://www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/229192/Volume-2-Issue-2.pdf
